Senate's Dragu: Many women hesitate to pursue a public office because of the aggressiveness

Senate President Anca Dragu says many women are reluctant to pursue a public office because of the "aggressiveness" that comes along with such position, as their personal lives are invaded and can be "damaged." "I think that many women have a reluctance to pursue a public office somehow because the political environment is an aggressive one, the public life means exposure to aggression, and their personal lives are invaded, there are many insults, their personal life and even the person herself gets to be trashed, while many women are more caring for their families, for their children, they put them first. (...) We have this feeling of protecting those close to us. And then the aggression we see that characterizes the public space, the political environment, many women may give up because of that. It is a price that, unfortunately, we have to pay unless, maybe, slowly, we can change things around. (...) This subject must be put on the table, we should not hide it under the mat, we shouldn't just pretend to debate on it, we shouldn't be afraid to address such issues. Yes, women must be present in politics, because they bring empathy, care, attention to detail," Dragu told PWN Live Talks. She added that she found that when building strategies in mixed teams, they work much better than single-colour teams. "We need a change of mentality at the level of society, but also at our level, of women, we need to be a little more courageous," said Anca Dragu. In her opinion, in Romania, the situation is quite opposite to that in the Western European countries or the European average, for the situation is much worse in our country when it comes to female leadership in politics, although the situation is better when it comes to female representation in the private sector. "In politics, unfortunately, in Parliament, we have only 15pct women senators in the Senate, and 18.54pct deputies in the Deputies Chamber. So, in the political environment we are much worse at representing women. There are two methods we can think about - by introducing gender-based quotas, and also an initiative would be needed of the parties or the leaderships of companies to seek to impose a better representation of women. (...) In Romania, an initiative was launched in 2011 to promote women, but it got rejected, it was submitted again in 2016, with a mandatory minimum quota of 30pct - and I mean now politics - for women, and it is still there, somewhere in the circuit. I had serious discussions and I worked on a bill with Mrs Alina Gorghiu, Vice President of the Senate, and we have this project to ask for a 40pct share of women's representation on lists, while looking at the Spanish 'zipper' system. (...) It is very important for the political parties to have this desire to promote women," Dragu explained. AGERPRES (RO - author: Catalina Matei, editor: Claudia Stanescu, EN - author: Cristina Zaharia, editor: Adina Panaitescu)